AI side hustles

AI Side Hustles: 17 Low-Effort Ways To Earn $1,000+/mo

AI side hustles completely change the way average folks can earn extra income. The crazy part? AI is only getting smarter. While many think AI will replace us, it in fact presents a rare opportunity for people to earn some serious income by becoming early adopters.

If you’re in a hurry I made a short video covering my 6 favorite AI side hustles below

The Best AI Side Hustles In 2024

Below I’ll explore 7 AI side hustles you can start that has the potential to a minimum of $1,000 per month.

1. AI-Powered Niche Site

One of the most popular AI side hustles involves blogging. An AI-powered niche site is a website that uses AI to create content and generate traffic. Tools like Jasper are fine-tuned specifically for bloggers and content creators. Essentially, the site is designed to cater to a specific niche, and the AI technology helps to produce high-quality, SEO-friendly content that is relevant to that niche.

You can monetize your site through affiliate sales, display ads, sponsored products, and email marketing. The amount of money you can expect to earn from an AI-powered niche site will depend on a variety of factors, including the size of your audience, the quality of your content, and the monetization strategies you use.

Some successful niche sites can generate tens of thousands of dollars per month in revenue, while others may only bring in a few hundred dollars per month. Success depending on how competitive your niche is, and the amount of traffic you can bring to your site.

2. Drop Servicing

Drop servicing is a business model that involves outsourcing services to third-party providers and then reselling those services to clients at a higher price. For example, someone hires you to write email copy, but you outsource that service to someone else. Or, in this case, an AI.

You can use AI tools to automate the process of finding and hiring freelancers, as well as managing projects and delivering services to clients. For example, you can use AI-powered platforms like Upwork or Fiverr to find and hire freelancers based on their skills, experience, and ratings.

Alternatively, you can use the AI tools yourself to complete the work, or hire a virtual assistant and train them to use the AI software.

3. Freelance Copywriting

Copywriting is equal parts art and science, where writers use clever and persuasive language in ads to sell more things. Now through the power of AI, you can create stellar entry-level copywriting as a freelance service.

You can easily create targeted jobs on Upwork and Fiverr to start getting clients quickly.

You can train tools like ChatGPT to become an expert copywriter for whatever project you’re working on. An example prompt might look like this:

“Create a Facebook ad selling my lizard harness “LizHar” to busy reptile-loving moms. Its features include: high-quality vegan leather, flexible material, 32 colors, and GPS tracking Make the ad witty, easy to read, and conversational. Include at least 2 relevant emojis. Use the PAS copywriting framework.”

If you’re interested in what a lizard harness ad would look like I’ll save you the suspense:

If you’re looking to explore how you can earn with AI writing, check out my guide on how to make money with AI writing.

4. Amazon KDP

Amazon KDP is a self-publishing platform that allows authors to publish and sell their books on Amazon’s Kindle store. With Amazon KDP, authors can create and upload their own eBooks, set their own prices, and earn royalties on each sale.

Text generation AI like Jasper can help authors to create stories or even full-length books, quickly and easily. These tools can generate content based on a variety of inputs such as prompts, ideas or structured data, and can even assist in the editing and revision process.

AI image software can be used to design custom illustrations and book covers, even if you’re not the artsy type. These tools can generate images based on specific themes, colors, and designs, and can be adjusted and customized to match the author’s vision.

Ammaar Reshi created “Alice and Sparkle” using ChatGPT and Midjourney

Making money with Amazon KDP is a numbers game. Clever side hustlers can target a particular niche, and leverage AI to produce multiple books quickly while slowly racking in those sweet royalties.

5. Etsy Printables

Etsy Printables is a popular marketplace where sellers can offer digital printables to customers. Printables can include anything from planner pages and calendars to wall art and party decorations.

You can use AI tools like Midjourney and ChatGPT to create unique designs and content for your printables. For example, you can have Midjourney create the cover of a dream journal and use ChatGPT to include clever dream-related quotes at the top of each page.

Two dream journals for sale on the Etsy Printables marketplace.

Similar to Amazon KDP, the amount of money you can expect to earn on Etsy Printables will depend on the quality of your designs, the demand for your printable products, and your ability to market and promote your products effectively.

However, by using AI tools to enhance your design and content creation skills, you can increase your chances of success by reaching more audiences faster with a larger variety of designs.

6. Faceless YouTube Channel

My personal favorite AI side hustle involves creating YouTube videos without ever having to show your face. Now, with AI you can create informative and interesting videos that bring in view, which translates to money.

A faceless YouTube channel with over 3.5m subscribers.

You can use ChatGPT to write come up with a captivating title, clever video idea, and even an entire script.

Feed that script into a tool like Synthesia to have digital avatars voice your script. I’ve found using voice cloning works the best. Basically, an AI studies samples of your voice and then generates realistic speech based on text.

Next, AI-powered tools like InVideo can detect what your video is about based on captions and ✨automagically✨ suggest relevant stock videos for each scene. The trick is to continuously create interesting content people want to actually watch.

You can monetize your faceless channel through ads, affiliate sales, and paid sponsorships.

7. Prompt Engineering

Carefully crafted prompts can change what AI can do in dramatic ways. By working with AI, you can experiment and finely tune prompts to generate a specific look or result. For example, a prompt engineer can help an AI app company get better results using more detailed prompting.

Or, a prompt engineer could sell their artistic Midjourney prompts on a prompt marketplace. Since a majority of people will have access to AI tools, having powerful prompts gives you an upper hand, at least for a little while.

Promptbase’s Midjourney prompt marketplace.

While prompt engineering is still fairly new, you can gain enough experience in the space to take on a freelance job, sell your prompts on the open market, or even work full-time for an AI software company.

8. Teaching Others In Your Industry

Piggybacking off of the previous AI side hustle, you can leverage your knowledge to earn income by teaching others how to use AI for a particular use case.

For example, say you’re a real estate agent who dabbles in ChatGPT. Maybe you find ways AI is helping improve your everyday workflow as an agent. You can document your process and record a course marketed specifically for real estate agents that want to improve their business.

ChatGPT courses on Udemy

To see the most success, target a niche or industry that you have experience in that hasn’t been exposed to AI tools.

9. AI-Powered Video Editing

AI-powered video editing tools like Runwayml can be used to automate tasks such as color correction, audio mixing, and video stabilization. This can save time and resources for video editors, allowing them to focus on other aspects of the editing process. Of all the AI side hustles available, video editing might save creators the most amount of time.

Type the video effect you want in Runwayml.

To monetize AI-powered video editing services, creators can offer video editing services as a freelance or contract worker, or create and sell video editing software or plugins. By leveraging the power of AI technology, video editors can increase their productivity, improve the quality of their work, and ultimately increase their earning potential.

10. Voiceover Services

One way to leverage AI technology in voiceover services is by using high-quality text-to-speech (TTS) software like Speechify.

TTS software can generate spoken audio based on written text, which means you can offer voiceover services for content such as commercials, online ads, or explainer videos.

AI voiceover jobs on UpWork

You can offer your services on platforms like Upwork and Fiverr where people are already searching for voiceover services. While some jobs might start small, if you can secure long-term projects you’ll be able to earn a consistent stream of side income.

11. Proofreading/Editing

One of AI’s strongest features is its ability to proofread and improve content. While tools like Quillbot can work wonders, there’s still a need for editing for long-form content. You can offer your services as a freelance editor or work for a publishing or content production company. You can also create and sell proofreading and editing software or plugins.

For SEO’s, blog content needs to be optimized for search so businesses will rank for certain keywords. You can offer SEO optimization and editing using AI tools like Outranking or SurferSEO. These tools are super easy to use, and tell you exactly what content you need to include to rank.

12. AI-Powered Print on Demand

Print-on-demand businesses have been blowing up recently, and AI has made starting a successful merch business a lot easier.

One way to use AI in print-on-demand services is by using AI-powered design software such as Vexels to create custom designs for products such as t-shirts, mugs, or phone cases. These tools can generate high-quality designs based on specific themes, colors, and designs, and can be adjusted and customized to match the creator’s vision.

ai print on demand side hustle
A Mid-century modern themed print on demand shop

The best part is you don’t even necessarily have an artist. Simply have an idea for a design and AI can give you different options based on your concept. Pick a niche, come up with different designs, and place your design on different marketplaces to start generating sales.

You can even make patterned designs like you see above and place them on pillows, shirts, and fabric. Head on over to Midjourney, and type your prompt, but be sure to use the “–tile” parameter. Then, take your upscaled image to Repper and have it generate tons of perfectly repeating patterns.

I dive into this pattern design method more in my Printify side hustle article.

If you want to learn more about how you can start a PoD side hustle, check out my free step-by-step print-on-demand guide.

13. AI-Services

On some freelancing platforms, you don’t even have to hide the fact you’re using AI. Fiverr for example has an entire section dedicated to AI services. Businesses know AI is a game-changer, but are still willing to pay for someone who’s experienced to use to AI tool for them.

AI side hustles on Fiverr

Content editing, fact-checking, design, and programming are just a few of the AI-based services you can offer on Fiverr. Even if you only land a few jobs in the beginning, that’s more than enough to cover the monthly cost of a tool like Midjourney.

14. Resume Writing/Optimization

Did you know AI reads resumes and tosses ones that are “relevant” to that position? Job seekers are looking to fight AI with AI, and you can earn some extra income by helping them.

Using AI-powered resume builders such as Zety, Novoresume, or even ChatGPT you can offer resume writing services for the modern job market. These tools can generate high-quality resumes based on specific templates, formats, and keywords, making the process of resume creation faster and more efficient.

To monetize your resume writing and optimization services, you can offer your services as a freelance resume writer in your spare time. You can expect to earn between $50-$500 per resume with the average being between $100-$200. Not too shabby.

15. Custom Excel Formulas

I’m convinced no one likes Excel. However, much of the world runs off of it. There are tons of businesses that need special formulas and formatting for their projects. Thankfully, AI can handle this for us pretty effectively.

You can use ChatGPT to create custom formulas, plugins, integrations, and add-ins simply by telling it what to do. While formulas for Excel are pretty popular don’t forget it can also write formulas for Google Sheets.

16. 3D Model Creation

Tools like Dreamfusion enable users to create 3D objects from a simple line of text. Although still in its infancy, this is huge for the art and design world. Creators can make figures and pieces to 3D print and sell, or design 3D characters to sell to game creators and virtual reality users.

You could sell DnD pieces, gameboard pieces, or offer 3D design as a freelance service. You’ll just have to get creative!

AI side hustles using 3D models
Dreamfusion’s text to 3-D tools

17. Script Writing

If AI is one thing, it’s creative. You can leverage tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, or CopyAI to create scripts for YouTube videos, video sales letters, stories, and even films. If you’re already a writer you’ll immediately notice that AI speeds up your workflow dramatically.

With the right prompts, you can list your script writing services on freelance platforms and earn a great side income helping people outline their creative projects.

Wrapping Up AI Side Hustles

This concludes my list of AI side hustles, I hope you found something worth at least learning more about. Do you use AI in your job or side hustle? Let me know about it in the comments below!

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